1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and particularly to an electrical connector for electrically connecting a battery to a printed circuit board (PCB) in a portable electrical device.
2. The Prior Art
Battery connectors are mainly used in portable electrical devices, for example cellular phones or lap-top computers, to connect with batteries to supply the electrical devices with electrical power. Prior art relating to battery connectors is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,632,475, 4,975,062 and 5,551,883 and Taiwan Patent Application Nos. 83107591 and 84210634.
To mount a battery connector to a printed circuit board in an electrical device, board locks are firstly provided to the connector. The board locks are extended through holes defined in the PCB to interferentially engage therewith. The board locks increase the cost of the connectors, and forming board lock mounting holes in the PCB reduces the area available on the PCB for accommodating electronic components.
To overcome the disadvantages of the prior art, an improvement has been proposed as shown in FIGS. 6 and 7. In FIG. 6, a battery connector 4 has three first contacts 52 and three second contact 54 alternating with each other. Each first contact 52 has a contact portion 522 for engaging with a corresponding contact in a mating connector for electrically connecting with a battery (not shown), and a tail portion 524 substantially perpendicular to the contact portion 522 for connecting with a PCB 3 (FIG. 7). The tail portion 524 has an engaging portion 526 projecting forward therefrom. Each second contact 54 has a contact portion 542 substantially the same as that of the first contact 52, a tail portion 544 perpendicular to the contact portion 542 and an engaging portion 546 projecting rearward from the tail portion 544. A housing 40 defines a number of grooves 41 in a rear face thereof. Each groove 41 has the same depth. A locating wall 43 extends forward from a front face of the housing 40 in alignment with the second groove counting from the left side of the housing 40. The locating wall 43 ensures the correct orientation of the connector 4 with a mating connector for electrically connecting with the battery. Each groove 41 communicates with a slot 42 defined through the connector 4, except for the groove 41 aligned with the locating wall 43.
After fixedly mounting the contacts 52, 54 in the corresponding grooves 41 of the housing 40, the contact portions 522, 542 extend through the corresponding slots 42 to project beyond the front face of the housing 40 and the engaging portions 526, 546 of the contacts 52, 54 project in opposite directions. When the connector 4 is mounted to the PCB 3 by extending the tail portions 524, 544 into corresponding holes 31 in the PCB 3, the engaging portions 526, 546 of the contacts 52, 54 fixedly engage with front and rear edges of the corresponding holes 31, respectively, due to a resilience of the tail portions 524, 544. Therefore, the connector 4 is fixedly mounted to the PCB 3 without the necessity of board locks.
Although the prior art as shown in FIGS. 6 and 7 is proven to be advantageous over the prior art requiring the use of board locks, two different contact types are required, which still results in an increased cost of the connector. Furthermore, inventory management of two contact types is troublesome and assembling a connector with two contact types is time consuming.
Hence, an improved battery connector is needed to eliminate the above mentioned defects of current battery connectors.